The heavy rain roared, falling upon the small village nestled within the lush and dense mini-rainforest of multi-coloured trees as the half-moon loomed overhead. The many biome domes sat in stark opposition to the barren desert of crimson and amber sand, encompassing them like an endless ocean of isolation.
The rain fell in droves from the packed clouds swirling above the rainforest, drumming against the ghostly veil that loomed over the treehouse village and sheltering it. As the faint patter of rain echoed against the veil, a faint light flickered from one of the suspended sphere-shaped treehouses, escaping through the small windows placed at each cardinal direction on its roof. The treehouse, a hut-sized construct from morphed wood and coated in maroon-pink paint, was suspended by a dark grey net and secured to a massive tree as the tipi swayed beside the village's network of treetop walkways.
Within the bustling treehouse, a jumbled assortment of scrolls and stacks of various materials littered the main room, leaving only the circular and bed-containing ledge absent of any clutter. Accompanying the soft crinkles, a larger scroll rolled off the ledge, unfurling to reveal its intricate tapestry for the other bound scrolls to see. As the scroll slowly slinked further over the edge, Kruesuno reached out a hand, snagging the rolling scroll and halted it from going any further. He yanked at the scroll, hurling it into the air before it instantly fell back down to dangle over the ledge.
"Great...," Kruesuno grumbled defeatedly as he robotically drifted his paintbrush against the scroll. He callously raised his gaze, lifting it from the bottom of the scroll to focus on the dangling portion over the ledge. He furrowed his brows with renewed displeasure, his ahoge aggressively swiping the air and lashing out like a crazy serpent.
(Loukruesuno is a humanoid kitsune ego of regret with the appearance of a nine-year-old boy; he has slightly short scruffy pale pink hair with an obnoxiously large glowing rose pink ahoge on his head, golden eyes with five-pointed star pupils, ash white skin, super long pale pink cat ears with five spikes on each ear, super sharp vampire fangs, a super long pink cat tail, and one super large rose pink batwing protruding from his right hip which phases through his clothing)
(Kruesuno is wearing a hip-low dark marron ceremonial robe with pale pink detailing, maroon leggings covered in ancient glowing pink runes, black fur boots that go halfway up to his knee, and a knee-low pale pink fur cloak shaped to look like a five-petaled flower adorned with intricate patterns all over it and dark pink ends)
Kruesuno scoured the tapestry of his own making, his scrutinous eyes roaming over the depictions and ancient scripts with an inquisitive intensity. The glint in his eyes betrayed his bewilderment, portraying himself as someone who'd never seen the depictions before, despite being its creator. The vampiric cat demi-human scoffed, his voice fuelled with enough venom to kill even an inanimate object.
"Seems this prophecy scroll is finally done," Kruesuno muttered. Tossing his brush to the side, he affixed his gaze to the painted runes and inscriptions that shifted across the larger scroll. The tapestry took on a new meaning, the arrangements and shapes of the symbols altered accordingly, revealing the tapestry's true interpretation.
Once the inscriptions settled and showed no signs of further changes, Kruesuno grabbed the prophesy scroll and began to roll it up as he complained about Lola's insistence on making such time-consuming magical items. However, as he coiled up half of the scroll, Kruesuno paused with his cat tail sticking up in the shape of an L. The centrepiece of the larger scroll left the ego at a loss of breath, unable to fully believe the message right before his eyes. But the sight quickly lost its shock, allowing Kruesuno to return to his usual angry self.
"Figures," the guy huffed, as he fully rolled up the scroll and bound it with some golden ropes. He raised his completed work, looking upon it like a kid getting a bag of coal on a merry holiday, and couldn't help rocking his head from side to side, seemingly mulling over something.
"Is waking her up worth it? Maybe I can get one of the other egos or the visages to do it... maybe even Mr Vivo, at least he'll be guaranteed to still be in one piece afterwards," Kruesuno mused, with his reluctance to undertake the task himself evident. He lightly clutched the scroll, his shoulders slumping as he sighed deeply, losing focus enough that his body and clothes dissolved into their dark purple cloud states. A single shiver ran down Kruesuno's spine as he recalled the source of his hesitation.
In his mind, a giant, mighty dragon roared, circling above the village while demanding Lola show herself and accept his duel. But as strong as it might've been, it was swiftly reduced to a crimson mist by a simple pillow thrown from a groggy Lola. The barking from Lola telling the mist to shut up rang clear in the ego's mind to this day, especially the resounding thud her front door made as she slammed it behind herself.
"She'll be quite upset with you if you withhold such a scroll from her, especially that one, Young One," Choumiko remarked, his voice carrying a brass smugness that the bat boy readily loaves. The kaiser god's sudden input startled Kruesuno, causing him to recoil and hurl the scroll skyward at mach speed before smacking Choumiko in the face with a clonk as he held onto the room's circular ceiling.
(Choumiko is the Void Time God Kaiser Beast with the appearance of a male human child; he has spikey neck-low glowing vanta-black hair, jet-black skin with glowing vanta black palms and soles, pale magenta kaiser energy[solid/bold energy that always has square-based shape] beams floating behind his head that are interlocked to form a hollow plus symbol and a hollow minus symbol, and a featureless face)
(Choumiko is wearing baggy magenta cargo shorts with pale magenta suspenders that go over his shoulders)
Kruesuno gasped in dismay, his expression unchanged. He watched the bound scroll spiral through the air and barrel straight for the open window as if by fate. Luckily for the cat boy, the scroll's trajectory dipped, altering its course and slamming into the closed front door. Kruesuno slumped his shoulders, allowing himself to relax, and let out a drawn-out exhale in relief, forcing the tension out of his body. With his nerves settled, the cat phased through his bed, landing feet first on the floor below before a dazed Choumiko plummeted from above and crashed into the mess below, flinging random bits and pieces in every direction.
Kruesuno facepalmed in utter disbelief, the chaotic state his room had devolved into left him in a dire state. Sure, the state it was in prior to his new roommate's arrival could hardly be considered tidy by any means but at least he knew the location of everything was within his cluster of stuff. But ever since the arrival of the kaiser gods, he reluctantly had to call one of them his roommates and with that Kruesuno's room has never seen a single moment of piece. Kruesuno could only murmur and heavily rub his temples, rubbing them in hopes of warding off his impending agitation-fuelled migraine. As the vampire cat complained further and wished he had gotten Kuuyasa or Ennäe Vaata for roommates even if they were girls, the mini-house's front door rattled back and forth before popping open.
"Do not fret over it, Krusu. We'll bear the brunt of walking up Lola," Zalroth stated amusedly, poking his head through the door and catching the conscious duo's attention. As he stepped into the mini-house and hunched over to fit inside, Zalroth kickflipped the scroll into the air and caught it in one swift motion.
"M-Mr Zalroth!?" the boyish pair exclaimed in united shock as they rushed across the cluster of bound scrolls to get to him.
(Zalroth is a super tall, twenty-one-year-old-looking adult male humanoid "kitsune"; he has slightly long silver hair with cyan to pale golden ends and large bangs, greyed-out pupilless eyes, pale white to the point it is faintly cyan skin with pale golden fingertips, a lean muscular build, twenty large[three times his size] kitsune tails made of embodiment qi[pale golden energy with a wavey/particle effect], and kitsune ears made of embodiment qi)
(Zalroth is wearing a skin-tight reflective sleeveless silver shirt, a white fur belt with the lower half of a mage robe attached to it, black fur trousers, and golden-fibre cotton socks)
"What are you doing here?" Choumiko exclaimed excitedly as he scaled up Zalroth like a jungle gym and sat on one of his ethereal kitsune tails. Unlike the kaiser being, Kruesuno remained more reserved crossing his arms to appear unphased, despite the erratic twitches of his bat wing saying otherwise.
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"That explains all the smudges I've been getting," Kruesuno grumbled, causing Zalroth to peer at the sea of scrolls filling the centre net section of the room.
"Heh, sorry about that, I would've stopped here first thing this morning but I got a little sidetracked," Zalroth remarked, chuckling as he rubbed the back of his head. The vampiric cat huffed indignantly, placing his hands on his hips while flicking his large ahoge.
"Sidetracked you say...," Kruesuno murmured as he narrowed his gaze at Zalroth, inspecting the guy's expression for any inkling of what could've kept him of all people preoccupied for so long.
"That... is what he said," Choumiko mentioned perplexedly, leering at Kruesuno despite the kaiser god's lack of a face. Kruesuno dropped his head and clasped a hand against the base of his ear whilst squeezing the fluff within it.
"You- why do I even bother," Kruesuno grumbled defeatedly as his ahoge swiped the air and nabbed the bound prophecy scroll from Zalroth's grasp before marching past him. Zalroth couldn't help but mentally snicker at Kruesuno's pouting, finding the young ego's childish frustration endearing as it reminded him of a certain someone back in their youth.
"Cute was the only way Zalroth could willingly perceive the young ones' actions; whether his views were just his bias showing or maybe he's finally started to mellow out in his old age~," Chronia voiced teasingly with her face buried in a light novel. Appearing within the blink of an eye, Chronia instantly sprawled out on a cluster of Zalroth's tails, taking her rightful claim atop them as if she owned them, which wasn't far from the truth.
(Chronia is a rather short and petite young-adult female "elf"; she has hip-low spikey pale lime and dark green hair with glowing pale purple ends, her hair is tied in three large hoop-shaped high pigtails which are adorned with pale purple crystalline arrowhead ornaments at the bottom of the rings, pale lime and teal eyes with pale purple pupils that are shaped like ten-pointed stars, translucent light tanned skin with tan lines and pale purple fur around her wrists/ankles, pointy elf-like ears, and thick thighs)
(Chronia is wearing a loose-fitting black crop top with a pale purple spiderweb pattern all over it, a fuzzy dark purple onesie which she wears with the top half folded down and the arms tied around her waist like a skirt, black leggings with a pale purple spiderweb pattern all over it, and thick oval-shaped pale purple wooden blocks that attach to the sole of her leggings' feet)
Chronia's words crashed into Zalroth's ears like a tsunami of teasing jabs, her playful demeanour bouncing around Zalroth's mind like the beads of a maraca. The kitsune could only let out a short huff of amusement at Chronia's tongue-in-cheek remark, especially as the short woman placed her heel against the back of his head.
"You're one to talk, Little Lady," Zalroth quipped back, batting back against Chronia's teasing with an equal amount of teasing to rival what she delivered to him. Almost comical, Chronia swiftly turned a fair shade of red, even her transparency faltering, and all her smugness fizzled out as she noticed Zalroth give her a cheeky wink.
That simple action from her portable bed had utterly obliterated all of Chronia's ability to think. Just like that, her meticulously crafted plans evaporated into a mist as her hopes of asserting her dominance over Zalroth were completely ruined.
"Oi! Don't you 'Little Lady' me, Mister," Chronia snapped back, her cheeks burning even brighter as she clung to the last shreds of her dignity, "I'm a whole seven months older than you, I think?". Despite the humiliation burning in her cheeks, Chronia couldn't deny the flicker of pride and satisfaction of knowing she'd managed to elicit such a reaction from Zalroth. The rare snark-laced wink from Zalroth was proof of her small victory, and the heavy pounding in her chest made the feeling of victory that much greater.
"In all honesty, the idea of getting me to do her bidding wasn't all that hard for her to achieve. After all, I am her favourite bed-" Zalroth joked, teasingly mimicking Chronia's inflexions before being cut off as the elf bonked him in the head with her light novel.
"Ok-ok, enough with the teasing. My heart might explode," Chronia stated playfully, between the staggering of her heavy breaths and the audible pounding of her heart.
"Can't take what you dish out, eh?". Zalroth stuck his tongue out at Chronia before she obscured her face with her light novel.
"Puh-lease, you just have a type advantage against me.". With that last bit of input, Chronia slumped backwards into Zalroth's tails, kicking back as she resumed her reading and leaving her bed alone for the time being.
Seeing the end of Chronia's siege had arrived, Zalroth lowered his gaze before he raised a tail and plunged it into the sea of bound scrolls. Using his tail like a fishing rod, Zalroth fished through the scrolls, slinking through the gaps between them in search of something or someone.
Without much effort on his part and mostly aided by the deep-rooted snores reverberating underneath, Zalroth managed to snag onto his target. And as effortlessly as he found them, Zalroth hoisted his fished tail upwards, wrenching it and Kokou from the grasp of the bounded scrolls.
(Loukokou is a humanoid kitsune ego of remembrance with the appearance of an eight-year-old boy and an identical facial appearance to Kruesuno; he has spikey neck-low pale grey hair tied into a braided hoop behind his head, golden eyes with five-pointed star pupils, dark grey skin with orange tattoos on his skin[a thin rectangle over his nose, a three-petaled flower on each of his cheeks, and crown on his forehead, two large fuzzy knee-low light grey rabbit ears which flop down behind his head, and a football-sized rabbit tail)
(Kokou is wearing a sleeveless black shirt, an oversized dawnite[glowing silver metal] fibre overalls covered in different coloured paint stains with one snapped suspender strap, and black wool slippers)
The sleeping Kokou dangled limply from Zalroth's tail like a freshly picked carrot. Once muffled and restrained, his snores were now an unobstructed cacophony of discord, freed from the muffling scrolls' influence. Crystal clear for all those within earshot, Kokou's obnoxious snores were soon joined by the nearby groggy groans of the other egos and visages in the mini village, each fuelled by different emotions ranging from apathy to utter disdain.
"Urg... he's going to get us in trouble," Photon whined with abstract rage, her lowercase shouting echoing from her ocean-blue treehouse hut as Kruesuno sauntered past with an even sourer expression. He continued on his way, each one of his impactful strides forcing the treetop walkway to sway and rattle, with most of its sounds deafened by the rain's pattering.
A gentle breeze whipped past him, brushing over his skin and sending a shiver through his body. The chilling sensation effortlessly restored Kruesuno's prior terror of awakening Lola, and he tightened his hold on his prophecy scroll, pressing it into his chest as the wind slightly picked up.
"Chil- no relax, they're here now, so I won't end up like that dragon...," Kruesuno mumbled, hoping to ease his nerves to some extent from both the external and internal stimuli aiming to bring him down. As his feet continued to carry him on their own, the kid's mind began to wander off, focusing on what he planned to say once he arrived at Lola's house, becoming so fixated on it that he failed to notice Zalroth and Chronia had caught up with him.
A little later...
"Perhaps... Lady Loutia, sorry to intrud on your... no that won't work," Kruesuno muttered as he lapped Photon's hut once more. Kruesuno threw his wing to his head, scratching at his scalp in frustration as nothing came to mind, finding himself in a rare state of mental stillness.
"As much as I commend you for wanting to do it yourself, I think it's best if you leave it to the pro this time around," Chronia remarked cheekily, her words snapping through Kruesuno's mental block and returning him to the world. Kruesuno swung his head around, panic-stricken, worried he'd lost track of time but slowly relaxed as he saw the moonlight around him.
"Besides, I might lose it if you lap the jungle again," Chronia added with a hint of annoyance as she sat upon Zalroth's tails. While the duo waited at a cross in the walkway slightly ahead of him, Kruesuno didn't make much of a fuss and reluctantly handed the scroll to Chronia before she fluttered off towards Lola's hut. Her hut was noticeably bigger than the others, dwarfing them by three times. Its sakura pink hue seemed to almost glow in the moonlight and illuminate the surrounding area, aided by Lola's hut being situated directly at the village's centre.
The vampire cat boy briefly lowered his gaze, exhaling sombrely as his cat features flopped like sad spaghetti from watching Chronia float away. Deep down he knew he was probably overthinking things; after all, Lola had never directed such an outburst towards any of them before, leading him to wonder if his current concerns may be incorrect in some way. But if it was truly just a simple misplacement of worry, then that left him with the sole question of what was causing the foreboding sense within him.
"So, it's Lola and Tia's birthday in a few days, right?" Zalroth asked nonchalantly while watching the nearly full moon overhead.
"Huh? Oh, yeah. I think it is-". At that moment, Kruesuno froze like he had once before. That single question from Zalroth unlocked the floodgates and all the kid's suppressed dread exploded to the surface in one big burst of revelation. He slapped his hands against the sides of his head with a sunken expression creeping across his face as his mouth gradually went agape before he exclaimed.
"Oh My Gods! We forgot!".